Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe Indiana Supreme Court held Tuesday in long-running litigation out of Brown County that county commissioners in Indiana have the authority to dissolve county fire districts.
“We conclude that, under the Home Rule Act, boards of county commissioners are authorized to amend a fire protection district, even if such amendment dissolves the district,” Justice Brent Dickson wrote for the majority in David Anderson, Joe Wray, John Kennard, Commissioners, and Board of Trustees, Brown County Fire Protection District v. Susanne Gaudin, Janet Kramer, and Ruth Reichmann, 07S01-1505-PL-284. The ruling was a 4-1 decision yielding three opinions.
In so ruling, the majority rejected a prior 2-2 Supreme Court affirmation of a trial court ruling in favor of landowners who sued Brown County commissioners to block an amendment of the county’s fire protection district. The commissioners’ amendment served to effectively dissolve the district, and prior rulings concluded commissioners lacked such authority.
"While this holding is inconsistent with the reinstated opinion of the Court of Appeals in [the Supreme Court's 2-2 decision in Gaudin v. Austin, 921 N.E.2d 895, 899 (Ind. Ct. App. 2010)], this Court is now able to review the issue with full participation, and we now disapprove of Gaudin I," Dickson wrote. "… We conclude that under the Home Rule Act, the Board of Commissioners is not limited in its power to unilaterally amend the ordinance that previously established the District, notwithstanding the landowners' claim that such amendment constitutes a de facto dissolution."
Dickson’s majority was joined by Justice Mark Massa and Chief Justice Loretta Rush; Justice Steven David concurred with a separate opinion concluding the same statute empowering commissioners to create the district necessarily vests power to amend it.
Justice Robert Rucker dissented, noting statute provides only one method of dissolving a fire district, and that is through freeholder petition. He said it also was telling that “legislative silence on this issue is instructive,” since lawmakers took no action to disturb prior rulings affirming rulings in favor of landowners who challenged the amendment.
“In any event, noting and agreeing with the trial court’s characterization that the Commissioners ‘gutted’ the Ordinance, the Court of Appeals here reached ‘the inescapable conclusion … that the ‘amendment’ the Commissioners made to the Ordinance was so extreme and far-reaching as to amount to a de facto dissolution of the Ordinance, in contravention of both section 36-8-11-24 and Gaudin [I],” Rucker wrote. “I agree and would affirm the judgment of the trial court.”
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.